I don't know if any of you guys are redditors, but a new subreddit has sprung up in the last couple of months that I think might be a useful resource. What's good about it is that it's really like, all about solving problems of mechanical design. If you've visited subreddits like /ludology, it's sometimes about that but sometimes about "what do Lara Croft's boobs mean for civil war re-enactors?" type of weird cultural questions.

...Which are fine, now that there's a place for people like me who have zero interest in that stuff and are interested in actual matters of "creating a strong rule-set".

I think a problem with discussing things on reddit is that, unlike the forum format, the posts will fade out after a day or two and you can't really talk about it anymore... Not to mention that people who critize games or mechanics which people love will get downvoted a lot (usually the most popular games are the worst designed as well, see MMOs etc.)

yeah i don't think reddit is a good place for in-depth discussions of game design, for the reasons alastair mentioned. if people don't like your post, they can vote it down and effectively hide it, meaning that less popular opinions don't get heard. tigs, while not being completely free of censorship, at least generally allows unpopular opinions about game design unless it goes to extremes (e.g. "games about rape are okay" or something)

also, a more important thing to me is, i want to discuss game design with people who *actually make games*, not people who are armchair game designers. armchair game designers often have no functional knowledge of the issues of game design, they only have second-hand knowledge. it's like, if you actually do something, is it really a good use of time to discuss what you do with people who have never done it? maybe, but it always feels a bit presumptuous to me when people who have never made a game try to tell game developers how to make games. their feedback can occasionally make sense, but often it's like this:

"You all think you have great ideas for Pokemon games, but if I actually listened to all of you and we combined all of your ideas into a game, it would be an unplayable monstrous game. You want a game with all the regions, but only the first generation Pokemons, yet all the legendary ones and such silly things. Whenever I receive one of these rants, I go to the development floor and read it out loud to all the Game Freak employees in a mocking voice, and we all laugh at you." -Satoshi Tajiri

I agree with the downvoting being an issue, but there's plenty of people on here that have never created or finished a game that jump into game design conversations all the time, so I'm not seeing how that's any different from here.

Anyway, I looked at the subreddit, and mostly saw submission of articles which felt a little ranty and one-sided, and some articles which have more to do with art than game design ..

"You all think you have great ideas for Pokemon games, but if I actually listened to all of you and we combined all of your ideas into a game, it would be an unplayable monstrous game. You want a game with all the regions, but only the first generation Pokemons, yet all the legendary ones and such silly things. Whenever I receive one of these rants, I go to the development floor and read it out loud to all the Game Freak employees in a mocking voice, and we all laugh at you." -Satoshi Tajiri

Haha, this is great.

But yeah, I'm not a big fan of reddit when it's about discussing game design/development. I haven't seen the /gamedesign/ board yet, but I've been using the /gamedev/ board for a couple of months (before I joined TIGS), and I kind of find the system a pain in the ass for the same reason as alastair's. In fact, it was the reason I've registered here on TIGS to begin with. To discuss game development without having the discussion fade out.

"You all think you have great ideas for Pokemon games, but if I actually listened to all of you and we combined all of your ideas into a game, it would be an unplayable monstrous game. You want a game with all the regions, but only the first generation Pokemons, yet all the legendary ones and such silly things. Whenever I receive one of these rants, I go to the development floor and read it out loud to all the Game Freak employees in a mocking voice, and we all laugh at you." -Satoshi Tajiri

If the pokemon people do that, I wonder what the D* Souls people do?

"Anor Londo archers beaten with poison and 1000 arrows? Make them invisible and immune to status ailments next game! Also make them pretend to not see you when you are invisible, only to shoot you with undodgeable arrows at random.

That will teach the lazy casual foreigners a lesson they will never forget. "

I've been active on the r/gamedev forum for months and am actually only just jumping in to the world of forums with TIGForums. I like reddit for when I post something to the company blog or put a talk up on slideshare; it has been one of my best tools to get eyeballs to my hard work.

On the other hand, reddit takes a lot of work to be a useful tool. To avoid getting marked as a spammer, you need to post in a 10:1 ratio of other people's content to your own. I spend a lot of time trying to post helpful advice on people's game development questions, and scouring the internet for interesting content to post. I'll take a look at the game design thread over the next few days to see if it looks like a good place to spend my reddit time in addition to r/gamedev and r/truegaming.

Yes, it's for text only discussion on gaming among core gamers. For instance, I was considering buying on Oculus Rift dev kit after a friend got his and started posting stereoscopic art scenes to facebook. i got super jealous and was about to whip out my credit card, but wanted to make sure I wasn't about to throw a few hundred dollars out the window on something gamers won't buy. So I started a thread and got over 400 responses in two days: http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dulro/are_you_planning_on_buying_an_oculus_rift/

So, I bought the dev kit. It may have just given me the mental justification I wanted to buy a toy I don't need, but now I'll get a kit and hopefully my next game will make an appearance on the system.

...if people don't like your post, they can vote it down and effectively hide it, meaning that less popular opinions don't get heard.

Although the flip side is, it is easier to find the well-thought-out opinions in giant threads, since they tend to attract upvotes, and thus rise to the top. It may just be a matter of scale. Reddit is definitely better for certain types of conversation. (Branching comment threads for example make for way better sub-conversations in a thread than TIG's flat model.) But you're right, topics rarely last more than a day or two, unless it's a really slow subreddit.

also, a more important thing to me is, i want to discuss game design with people who *actually make games*, not people who are armchair game designers.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I honestly wonder what percentage of each (TIG design readers, redditors) have actually made at least one game. This may be completely unfair to one side [and if so, I apologize in advance!] but I'd always seen both populations as pretty equivalent, honestly. I mean, they're both internet forums with no requirement for entry, populated by people who are really interested in, and want to talk about a particular subject. There's no real reason to go to either unless you make games, or want to.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I honestly wonder what percentage of each (TIG design readers, redditors) have actually made at least one game. This may be completely unfair to one side [and if so, I apologize in advance!] but I'd always seen both populations as pretty equivalent, honestly. I mean, they're both internet forums with no requirement for entry, populated by people who are really interested in, and want to talk about a particular subject. There's no real reason to go to either unless you make games, or want to.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I honestly wonder what percentage of each (TIG design readers, redditors) have actually made at least one game. This may be completely unfair to one side [and if so, I apologize in advance!] but I'd always seen both populations as pretty equivalent, honestly. I mean, they're both internet forums with no requirement for entry, populated by people who are really interested in, and want to talk about a particular subject. There's no real reason to go to either unless you make games, or want to

from my experience there are just a lot of armchair game designers in general, it's not really limited to any particular community.

I really prefer google+ as a place for in-depth discussions, but I don't have any programmers, computer/console game makers outside of my tabletop gamer circles since I've started to learn to code a couple months back.

Reddit is good for searching for what's happening right now, but it's hard to weigh the worth of comments without avatars. I made an account and have been keeping up with programming related subreddits, but haven't done much commenting or posting on my end yet.

I really prefer google+ as a place for in-depth discussions, but I don't have any programmers, computer/console game makers outside of my tabletop gamer circles since I've started to learn to code a couple months back.